Karl Rove: Let’s face it, Hillary’s “old and stale”

posted at 3:21 pm on May 27, 2014 by Allahpundit

Baffling. We all understand what he’s trying to do, nourishing the seed of doubt in voters’ minds that she’s too old and too sick for the demands of the presidency. But look at some of his rhetoric.

“Hillary may have the impression in people’s minds that she’s both the third term of Barack Obama … and a third term for Bill Clinton, which is now 20 years in the rearview mirror,” Rove said on Fox News…

“People don’t like people who have it sort of already made, they want to see a scrapper, they want to see a fighter,” Rove said. “And if it looks like you are the candidate, then people tend to pick at your faults and tend to look at alternatives.”…

“In American politics, there’s a sense you want to be new, you don’t want to be too familiar, you want to be something fresh, you don’t want to be something old and stale,” he said.

Everyone see the problem?

Rove's early anti-Clinton barrage makes some sense for every GOP candidate except Jeb Bush. Which is kinda odd. http://t.co/9Q5xR7n6vX

Why would a guy who’s on Team Jeb want to turn voters against a candidate with a “stale,” “familiar” name, who has it “sort of already made” because of his family connections, and who’ll widely be attacked as running for a third Dubya term? Bush’s Republican opponents will have a field day with that soundbite in the primaries. That’s what makes this so weird — the potential cost to Jeb, in handing an ad-ready soundbite like this to Rand Paul or Chris Christie or whoever, is greater than the marginal benefit of introducing the “Hillary’s too old” argument bright and early, as Rove’s been doing. That argument will be made by a hundred different commentators in a hundred different formats before 2016, but to have Dubya’s chief advisor on tape blathering about dynastic retreads is unique and noteworthy, and Rove surely knows it. It’s not a perfect parallel, but imagine the fun we’d have rubbing the Clintons’ face in it if, say, David Axelrod had made this same argument vis-a-vis Jeb. All of that being the case, why would he do it?

Could it be that Rove’s … not on Team Jeb? Hard to believe, and if it’s true, why he is handing the Times syrupy sweet quotes about Bush like how he’s allegedly the “deepest thinker” in the Republican Party? Also, if he’s not on Bush’s side, whose side is he on? He’s surely not going to gamble on Christie and Rubio while the rest of the GOP establishment is lining up behind Jeb. What’s going on here?

I hate it when my oligarchic betters play 17-dimension chess. It only serves to remind me what a pathetic, plebeian schlub I am.

If only I had finished my GED instead of falling for the glamorous lifestyle of crystal meth addiction. Perhaps then I could have gone to an Ivy League school majoring in transgendered colonalist oppression studies and joined the elite.

Lets face it, she is getting up there in years and is not in the best of health contrary to what Bill says. The entire Democrat world will come tumbling down quick if she has one of her fainting spells on the Campaign trail. Nothing and nobody will be able to cover that up.

And being on the Campaign trail for President is about a year long grueling job. Way more than she did as SOS.

I think he just honestly thinks Jeb is a “fresh” and “not familiar” face, which is just dumb. And on that note: let’s not pretend that “The Architect” is still some evil genius or something. The guy has also gotten rich promoting campaigns and causes that have become miserable failures. Jeb fits right into that niche.

If she is his preferred opponent for 2016, his repeated comments force the left to circle the wagons and play for team Hillary!. The other potential opponents probably don’t appreciate having to sing Hillary!’s praises constantly and have the oxygen sucked out of the news cycle.

The GOP’s not going to run another Bush because of how bad GWB’s poll numbers were at the end of his term. Heck, all the lefties could re-use their protest signs and not have to change any words.

Anyhow, when you look at how the GOP’s been trying to pander to Hispanics lately, and how important they’ll be to future elections, they’re not going to pass up an opportunity to push a likeable, young, articulate Hispanic man to be ***THE FIRST HISPANIC PRESIDENT EVAR!!!*** Yeah, sure, Democrats got the first black president ever, but so what? Blacks are a fairly static vote block where are Hispanics are a swelling voter block.

Jeb will be fine with this because everyone knows that Rubio is his protege and he’ll get all the influence he wants because of it.

Do you think the rules in politics should be different for a woman? Girls can’t take the heat, in other words?

I’m a woman, and I find your inference offensive.

Dolce Far Niente on May 27, 2014 at 3:35 PM

You think most women like their age to be put out there?
And also Do you think they like to be called “old and stale”?
Karl Rove took 400 million in donations and couldn’t produce a seat.
He no longer has ‘it’
Karl Rove is making it way too easy for democrats.

I can’t speak for any of the other crazies around here, but I wasn’t a fan of Bush or Rove during the Bush administration.

Shump on May 27, 2014 at 3:40 PM

Speak for yourself. I couldn’t get enough of that compassionate conservatism.

No Child Left Behind – Oh, man. Who wants to leave children behind? Don’t you see how much better our kids text today than they did 30 years ago? That’s progress!

Medicare Part D – Think how screwed up prescription drugs for the elderly would be without the beneficient, wise guidance of a nimble, caring federal government? Really looking for to Parts E through Z.

Iraq & Afghanistan – Nothing says we care about the savages of the Third World than dumping scads of money on them! Sure hope Jeb can get us involved in some more pointless money traps.

I say we just go ahead and offer the throne to Jeb. I, for one, shall always serve the House of Bush and bitterly oppose the miscreants of the House of Clinton.

And being on the Campaign trail for President is about a year long grueling job. Way more than she did as SOS.

Johnnyreb on May 27, 2014 at 3:37 PM

Depending on when you announce and how your primary goes, it can be longer than that. Clinton announced in January 2007 and Obama in February 2007. It’s a slowish ramp-up and then depending on how the primary goes, it can be a solid year and a half of campaigning.

Then if you win, you really never get a break again until you’re done being President (at least that was true for most Presidents prior to Obama who doesn’t work very hard).

Somehow I just don’t see Clinton doing it. Rove is right to point out her health concerns. Even if she was fundamentally healthy, she looks totally worn out. She’s got to be thinking how much easier it would be to chill out with the grandbaby in a few months. She’s already super rich.

I think at the end of the day, however, Bush isn’t going to be the candidate anyway. It’s like to be Rubio or Christie, but probably Rubio.

With all of the heat going on with amnesty and Latinos, both parties have a chubby for Latinos and 2016 is going to be a panderpalooza.

Rubio for the GOPe (they’ll never pick Cruz – too conservative, too rational), and if the DNC go with Hillary, they’ll have a latino in the veep slot. If Hillary isn’t at the top, I doubt they’d go to someone like Warren without at least giving a serious look around for a latino to put on the top of the ticket (who nationally would be ‘known’ every bit as much as Warren). Seeing Castro’s name a lot (here and elsewhere), not an original thought on my part. But no way does the DNC not have a latino in one of the slots, probably GOP, too.

I was a Bush fan until 2005 when Bush screwed conservatives after we gave the Republican Party a 5 seat majority in the Senate. In 2006 election Rove had fun screwing conservatives by forcing far left Republican candidates down our throats.

I don’t care who’s team he’s on. I like what he’s doing. Everything he’s saying about Hillary is being repeated as outrage, free advertising. And if it goes against Jeb, im ok with that too. two birds with one stone.

Good thing the Dems have rookie Eva Longoria in the dugout being groomed for some sort of political presence down the line. Sure she’s shallow, inexperienced, reflexively liberal, and not very bright, but hey, she’s not old and stale!

Yeps, I remember how it started happening in late 2005 with the Harriet Miers appointment process and gained some steam with the CIRA controversy. Up until that point, in spite of the spending explosion, the earmarking corruption and the horribly managed wars, most criticism of the Bush Administration and the DeLay/Hastert/Lott wing in Congress was met with the same displeasure that currently any defense of the good work the House GOP has done in controlling the Democrat impetus in Washington is.

I know enough TruCons and I still remember how fiercely they’d defend the Bush Administration and the GOP majorities back then; I remember the tone in places like RedState and FreeRepublic (or the early stages of HotAir).

Rove is right to call Hillary “old and stale”. She will be 69 years old in 2016. She had her big chance in 2008 (when she was 61) and lost the Dem nomination to a 47-year-old freshman Senator, then took the job of Secretary of State and bungled everything she touched on foreign policy, then resigned in disgrace shortly after the Benghazi attack. By 2016, she will have been out of any elected or political office for four years, with her previous tenure an embarrassing disaster.

For what it’s worth, Jeb Bush also missed his big chance in 2006–after two successful terms as the respected Governor of Florida, he could have easily won a Senate seat (replacing Bill Nelson) in Florida, but declined to run, believing that he could eventually replace his brother as President, but the constant media drumming against the Iraq war made the Bush name toxic to the electorate by 2008. Jeb Bush will have not held any elective office for 10 years by 2016, which would make him as bad a Presidential candidate as Hillary Clinton.

If Hillary is “old and stale”, then we need a younger, fresher candidate with a RECENT record of accomplishment, such as a sitting, re-elected Governor. By 2016, this would point to candidates like Scott Walker, John Kasich, Bobby Jindal, Rick Perry, or Nikki Haley.

He may just be thinking there is another Democrat out there who really wants to run in 2016 but is afraid to take on Hillary. He is giving that person the ammunition. And maybe making Hillary think a little more about whether she really wants to do this.

Added bonus – he happens to be right. The same may be true of Jeb Bush, but right now Rove is happy to be playing chief antagonist to Hillary. He doesn’t mind being the flak-catcher.

When I was growing up I hoped that someday America would have a woman President. (My Dad, RIP, thought it would be me!) I certainly did not think she would be a woman near 70 whose main claim to fame was that she was once married to another President who famously and serially cheated on her.

Rove is an idiot and will do everything he can to push his favorite RINO in the 2016 primaries, but I don’t see an issue in terms of what he said about Clinton and Jeb Bush. I’m not on Team Jeb by any means, but in regards to what Rove said about Clinton it doesn’t apply to Jeb Bush aside from the family name…..Jeb has not been a national figure for decades like Hillary has been. As someone already mentioned, Jeb missed his chance when Bill Nelson retired. His stance on illegal immigration will sink him in the primaries so I don’t see him as a viable candidate to begin with….he may think he’s speaking truth to power but you can’t tee off the Conservative base and win a primary.

Think about it this way – in order to refute the charge, you have to repeat it. Every time a dem says “are you serious? Jeb Bush is old and crusty too!” they’re repeating the line about Clinton being old and crusty. It’s easy as hell to respond to, but the obvious response doesn’t help.

Also, wouldn’t be surprised if Rove is backing Walker. While he’s been with the Bushes for a long time, it’s clear they’ve reached the end of their usefulness to him. Crossroads isn’t making nearly as much money, and Jeb Bush represents the establishment just getting Caligulan in their decadence. There’s going to be a backlash, and he seems to be the type of guy who sneaks out the back door right before the cops bust up the party.

liars like you calling truthtellers liars makes goebbels very happy. he is orgasming in his grave.
ThisIsYourBrainOnKoch on May 27, 2014 at 4:05 PM
Wtf…Are you tryin’ to pull a schadenfreude there?
jimver on May 27, 2014 at 4:54 PM